Labor Productivity

Output per hour worked in the nonfarm business sector. Productivity growth is the key to non-inflationary wage increases: if wages grow 4% but productivity grows 2%, the remaining 2% is purely inflationary. A productivity acceleration would allow the Fed to tolerate higher wages without tightening.

Source: Federal Reserve (FRED), accessed via ALFRED (Archival FRED). ALFRED archives each data point exactly as it was first published on release day — before any revision by the reporting agency. The figures shown here are what investors, traders, and policymakers were actually looking at when the data came out. Economic releases like payrolls, GDP, and inflation are often revised significantly in subsequent months; ALFRED lets you see the real-time picture.